#Order: Orthoptera

[professionalunprofessional]

The Giant Katydid… what a chonker!

[sincerely-nines]

I PINNED BUGS TODAY

[supercantaloupe]

Oh oh also!!! patron saint of identifying insects perhaps? Soups/stews and insect identification !

omg that's so fun. i would LOVE to be a master at insect ID

[ask meme]

[taxonomytournament]

Taxonomy Tournament: Insects

Phasmatodea. This order is made up of insects that mimic plants. Members include stick insects and leaf-bugs

Orthoptera. This order has elongated hindlegs adapted for jumping. Members include grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids.

[floridensis]

i can only put ten answers so i am sorry to everyone i could not represent!

[fiishboowl]

My last one got some attention and I accidentally only set it for a short time frame so here is BUG POLL 2!!!!!!

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Broad-banded Hornet Fly - Spilomyia alcimus

After lasts week's 800 post milestone, we return to the blog's regular scheduled postings.

As part of an initiative to bolster the blog's overlooked orders, Diptera and Orthoptera, I've added many new photo showcases over the last two weeks to highlight insects from those orders. I had hoped to shine a new spotlight on some familiar garden visitors, and to showcase a new specie or two. Today, I'm beyond ecstatic to share this unexpected find from my neighborhood! Discovering this Hoverfly was a welcome surprise, and very startling too as I genuinely thought a large Yellowjacket had just buzzed right past my face and onto the tree leaves. I've seen many Wasp mimics throughout my surveys, but this Spilomyia specie has to be the most convincing mimic to date! What really sets it apart from some of the other mimicking species comes down to the fine details. Specifically, the position of its wings at rest; orange-yellow spindly legs; and an elongated, tapering abdomen. Even the thoracic patterns and abdomen bands are reasonable facsimiles for what is expected on a Wasp's body. Of course, once you get over the shock and look at this insect more closely, it's only then that the mimicry begins to lose its credibility. Like its relative from a distant location, the Western Hornet Fly, this Broad-Banded Fly has a traditionally structured Dipteran head. This head structure is complete with massive compound eyes and short antennae.

It is unmistakable, but the yellow and black banding along the eyes do go to great lengths to maintain the illusion of having a fearsome stinger to retaliate with. The latter information is quite relevant to this insect, as it has no defense if confronted by a Wasp if they were to meet on a flower. After detecting its scent, Wasps could easily make quick work of this mimic using their powerful mandibles if the latter got too close. The next biggest giveaway to this disguise is that Flies only have one pair of wings, but that's only of real concern to humans. Other animals aren't (necessarily) going around counting the wings on the insects they see. Furthermore, as this Fly's forelegs are black towards the tarsal claws, this mimic holds them up to pass them off as antennae similar to those of Wasps. You can see this behavior for yourself in these pictures. If anthropomorphized, these snapshots might give this Fly an air of great expression. In any case, so long as this disguise is effective, this Hoverfly can go about its day searching for flowers or rotten wood (to obtain food or secure its eggs respectively), both of which can be found in ample amounts within human-managed wilderness. Finally, when it comes to identification of this master of disguise, you'll need visual information regarding the eyes and the hindlegs. If this is indeed S. alcimus, there should be a spine on the femur (zoom in on Pictures 3 and 8).

Pictures were taken on July 1, 2024 with a Google Pixel 4.

[anime-insect-of-the-day]

Today's anime insect of the day is: A cricket from Dororo

Order: Orthoptera

Family: Gryllidae 

[kitty-koins]

orthopteric ┄ a gender related to the order Orthoptera, which includes grasshoppers, crickets and locusts, as well as other closely related insects !

not a rq, lemme know if this has already been coined by someone ! wanted to try something new out with the flag template :3

[asmrtune]

Crickets are fascinating insects that have captivated human curiosity for centuries. From their distinctive chirping sounds to their unique physical characteristics, crickets have become synonymous with warm summer nights and the enchantment of the natural world. In this article, we will delve into the intriguing world of crickets and explore their behavior, biology, and significance in the ecosystem.

Physical Characteristics

Crickets belong to the order Orthoptera, which also includes grasshoppers and katydids. These insects typically have cylindrical bodies, long antennae, and powerful hind legs adapted for jumping. They range in size from just a few millimeters to several centimeters, with varying colors and patterns depending on the species.

One of the most distinctive features of crickets is their ability to produce sound. Male crickets possess a specialized structure called a "stridulating organ" on their wings. By rubbing these wings together in a process called stridulation, they create the characteristic chirping sound that is synonymous with warm summer nights.

Life Cycle and Behavior

Crickets undergo incomplete metamorphosis, meaning they go through three stages: egg, nymph, and adult. The female cricket lays her eggs in the soil or in plant material, and they typically hatch within a few weeks. The nymphs that emerge closely resemble the adults but lack wings and reproductive organs. They molt several times, shedding their exoskeletons, until they reach adulthood.

Crickets are primarily nocturnal insects, and their chirping serves various purposes. The most well-known function is mating. Male crickets produce their distinct songs to attract females and establish their territories. Each species has a unique song pattern that acts as a courtship call, with the female selecting a mate based on the quality and intensity of the song.

Beyond courtship, crickets also use chirping as a means of communication and defense. They can produce different types of calls to warn off potential predators or signal danger to other crickets. In some cases, the chirping can even serve as a form of aggression between males competing for mates or territory.

Ecological Significance

Crickets play an essential role in the ecosystem as both predators and prey. They feed on a variety of organic matter, including plant material, decaying leaves, and other insects. As scavengers, crickets help decompose organic matter and recycle nutrients back into the soil. They also serve as a food source for a wide range of predators, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and even other insects.

Furthermore, the sounds produced by crickets have ecological significance. In addition to attracting mates, the chirping of crickets serves as an auditory cue for predators. For example, bats use echolocation to locate and capture insects in flight, and they can detect and home in on the unique frequency patterns of cricket songs.

Cultural and Symbolic Representations

Crickets have long been associated with various cultural and symbolic representations across different societies. In many cultures, the chirping of crickets is considered a sign of good luck or prosperity. They are often featured in folklore, literature, and even as characters in children's stories.

In some Asian cultures, crickets are kept as pets or used in cricket fighting, where the male crickets compete against each other in battles of song. These traditions highlight the cultural significance and admiration for these fascinating insects.

[crevicedwelling]

noted bug knower crevicedwelling,

how do I learn to identify bugs? I know a few from general knowledge and I’ve learned a bunch of isopod and centipede species from you, but I’ve been trying to identify caterpillars from the garden and google is useless, and inaturalist seems tricky unless i already have a name. Should I be looking for books? Any advice appreciated

I’m not too familiar with caterpillars but if you live in Eastern North America, the books and links here might be useful! The Caterpillar Lab has an instagram as well, and post some lovely photos of lepidopterans which might be useful for ID, depending on where you live.

in general, learning the common invertebrate classes, orders, and some of the families is a good place to start. Wikipedia is actually a pretty decent resource for general ID but if you really want to consult literature for taxonomic characters I can try to find some resources; BugGuide may be helpful as well (though is limited to Canada + US arthropods). then you can combine these higher level classifications with localized searches on iNaturalist (like “Orthoptera” or “Scarabeidae” and see if any matches come up near you. combined with a decent field guide, online or book, you should be able to get decently close to a species ID, and if not, it’s fine to just keep it as family or order level until you get more information about it. this is pretty much what I do whenever I am asked to identify a bug I’m not immediately familiar with.

[ask-professor-gohan]

professor Gohan what the strongest bugs in the world also if you weren’t an entomologist what would you be?

They're also the classic example of insect strength. I mean, what can't these little guys do?! They plow through the ground for their intricate tunnel systems, use their jaws to cut up everything from leaves to their enemies, and even build bridges and rafts by hanging from each others' bodies! The force of a trapjaw ant snapping its mandibles shut on a hard object can be enough to send itself flying several times its body length back, which looks silly but is a great escape route. And of course, they can lift tens of times their own body weight. To explain shortly, smaller animals have the potential to be very relatively strong because the surface area-volume ratio is more even at that scale. They weigh less and so have less to carry, so they can allocate strength to carrying larger objects than usual. A human-sized ant would be very strong, but not as proportionately strong as it was at its usual size. But let's move on from ants!

Apparently, the world's strongest insect and apparently overall strongest animal (once again relative to body mass!) is a dung beetle called Onthophagus taurus which has pulled more than 1,000 times its body weight in a study! This strength may have been sexually selected for due to males competing for females through competitions of brute strength. Beetles in the family Scarabaeidae are generally pretty strong, if you hold certain burrowing species in your hand you'll find that they can prise open your fingers quite easily!

The diabolical ironclad beetle (Phloeodes diabolicus) is another very strong beetle, but in a different way. Its exoskeleton, especially its elytra (the shell on its back), are incredibly durable and are constructed of layers that are meshed like puzzle pieces and cemented together by proteins that make them almost impossible to crush through natural means. The way the parts of the shell are interlaced also has given scientists a challenge to replicate their structure in human materials such as planes. Biomimicry is a crazy field! Also, you can imagine how notoriously difficult these things are to preserve for the... average entomologist.

(It's true. Entomologists, in the name of science, have run over these beetles with their cars and they just shrugged it off.)

I don't want to make this post too long (you're strong yourself for getting this far!), but I should give honorable mentions to our saltatorial (jumping) friends in the order Orthoptera, which are your grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids. Even less well-known (or rather less-respected) are the fleas, which I personally find fascinating because their closest relatives are likely scorpionflies! Who knew such a tiny, flat insect with no wings but powerful hindlegs could have evolved from potentially such a dainty-looking ancestor.

As for an alternate career path... I'm very grateful to be studying the insects I love so much, but I've always been interested in all the sciences. One of my backup plans was to become a researcher or lab technician at Capsule Corporation, which would have dealt largely with mechanical engineering. I wonder how that would have gone!

[an-theduckin]

Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They have triangular heads with bulging eyes supported on flexible necks. Their elongated bodies may or may not have wings, but all Mantodea have forelegs that are greatly enlarged and adapted for catching and gripping prey; their upright posture, while remaining stationary with forearms folded, has led to the common name praying mantis.

The closest relatives of mantises are termites and cockroaches (Blattodea), which are all within the superorder Dictyoptera. Mantises are sometimes confused with stick insects (Phasmatodea), other elongated insects such as grasshoppers (Orthoptera), or other more distantly related insects with raptorial forelegs such as mantisflies (Mantispidae). Mantises are mostly ambush predators, but a few ground-dwelling species are found actively pursuing their prey. They normally live for about a year. In cooler climates, the adults lay eggs in autumn, then die. The eggs are protected by their hard capsules and hatch in the spring. Females sometimes practice sexual cannibalism, eating their mates after copulation.

Mantises were considered to have supernatural powers by early civilizations, including ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, and Assyria. A cultural trope popular in cartoonsimagines the female mantis as a femme fatale. Mantises are among the insects most commonly kept as pets.

I love annoying you :)

Have a great day mantis-hater

Oh fuck you @eyedrinktwomp I'm gonna go kill a mantis cuz of this

[farcillesbian]

my top five insect orders:

1. coleoptera (esp curculionidae)

2. lepidoptera

2. (yes it's tied) orthoptera

3. hymenoptera

4. hemiptera

[o-craven-canto]

Top 10 instances of each taxonomic rank by number of named species

Data from Catalogue of Life (yes, I'm aware that taxonomic rank is largely arbitrary and that species boundary are fuzzy, especially outside of Eukaryotes; taxa within "quotes" are paraphyletic groups whose descendance encompasses others, e.g. "Reptilia" also contains the ancestry of Aves)

Largest Domains:

Eukarya (organisms with cell nuclei): 2.1 million species

Bacteria: 10,000 [currently named!] species

Archaea: 380 species

Largest Kingdoms:

Animalia or Metazoa (animals): 1.5 million species

Archaeplastida (green plants & kin): 380,000 species

Fungi (fungi): 160,000 species

"Protista" (all Eukaryotes that are not animals, plants, or fungi; Catalogue of Life splits from them the old "Chromista", but now that's not supported by morphology nor by phylogeny): 65,000 species

Largest Phyla:

Arthropoda (insects, crustaceans, spiders, &c): 1.2 million species

Angiospermae (plants with flowers): 350,000 species

Mollusca (clams, snails, slugs, and squids): 130,000 species

Ascomycota (various groups of fungi): 98,000 species

Chordata (vertebrates, lancelets, and sea squirts): 73,000 species

Basidiomycota (another group of fungi including most mushrooms): 53,000 species

Foraminifera (protists with calcareous shells): 50,000 species [this might count a great deal of extinct species]

Platyhelminthes (tapeworms & other flatworms): 23,000 species

Bryozoa (little colonial invertebrates): 21,000 species

Annelida (earthworms, leeches, & other segmented worms): 18,000 species

Largest Classes:

Insecta (insects): 970,000 species

"Magnoliopsida" (most flower plants): 260,000 species

Gastropoda (slugs & snails): 97,000 species

Arachnida (spiders, scorpions, and mites): 93,000 species

Liliopsida (a group of flower plants including grasses): 81,000 species

Malacostraca (crabs, shrimps, and some other crustaceans): 46,000 species

Agaricomycetes (mushrooms including agarics): 41,000 species

Dothideomycetes (another group of fungi): 32,000 species

Actinopterygii (ray-finned fish): 31,000 species

Bivalvia (clams, scallops, oysters, &c): 22,000 species

[Mammalia (mammals): 6000 species]

Largest Orders:

Coleoptera (beetles): 330,000 species

Diptera (flies & mosquitoes): 170,000 species

Lepidoptera (moths & butterflies): 160,000 species

Hymenoptera (ants, wasps, & bees): 120,000 species

Hemiptera (aphids, cicadas, & bedbugs): 100,000 species

Araneae (spiders): 50,000 species

Asparagales (orchids, onions, & agaves): 41,000 species

Asterales (daisies, dandelions, & sunflowers): 39,000 species

Orthoptera (crickets and grasshoppers): 30,000 species

Lamiales (mint, olives, and many herbs): 28,000 species

[Primates (lemurs, monkeys, & apes): 530 species]

Largest Families:

Curculionidae (weevils): 74,000 species

Staphylinidae (rove beetles): 67,000 species

Carabidae (ground beetles): 41,000 species

Cerambycidae (longhorn beetles): 36,000 species

Scarabaeidae (scarab beetles): 36,000 species

Asteraceae (most Asterales): 36,000 species

Orchidaceae (orchids): 31,000 species

Ichneumonidae (parasitoid wasps): 24,000 species

Fabaceae (beans): 24,000 species

Erebidae (a family of moths): 23,000 species

[Hominidae (great apes including humans): 8 species]